I just got an acceptance letter from California Northstate University for their BSMD program, I haven’t added them to my common app list or even applied? Is this legit?
I strongly doubt that it is an acceptance letter for many reasons. 1st you didn’t apply. 2nd its way too early in the admssions timeline to be receiving acceptances. 3rd I’m sure for a BSMD program, they will at least require an interview. You sure it’s not one of your friends’ prank???
I find it very, very, very hard to believe a BS-MD program (even one without a guaranteed MD acceptance) is accepting a student that hasn’t even applied. You sure it’s an acceptance letter and not like an invitation to apply letter?
Please copy and post the body of the letter if possible, with your info redacted.
California Northstate University is a **“FOR-PROFIT” **university. That means is it a sales promotion sent to you.
It is NOT a part of the California State University (CSU’s) nor the UC’s. In other words, it is not a California public university. So, if you were planning on doing medical school in the Caribbean, you now have another option without the sand and palm trees.
That means no funding for students. Apparently, all of the “professors” are foreign-trained.
Edited to add: It is an accredited university, but it is FOR profit.
@“aunt bea”
We had a long discussion here on CC regarding the merit of CNU earlier this year. And yes, it is a for profit MD school, it is also accredited by LCME, the main body who accredit all med schools.
Nevertheless, whether it is equivalent to a Caribbean school or not is still to be seen, Rocky Vista, also a for profit med (DO) school, since 2007, has become a respectable school in the USA. The average GPA of entering student of CNU is 3.7, a very respectable figure. Since its first year in MD school operation, the results are still remain to be seen, its a big risk for the applicant who is applying now but we cannot write it off as a Caribbean knockoff. Its not all eval just because it is for profit. Fox news has a report on the subject.
http://www.foxnews.com/health/2016/06/22/new-for-profit-medical-schools-springing-up-across-us.html
@Artloverplus: It should be an interesting option. It would be nice to see a for-profit succeed, given the amount of dollars and time that these students and their families are shelling out.
A couple of small clarifications—
This is CNU’s second year of operation, not first. CNU’s first class of students began in fall 2015.
Cal Northstate in only provisionally accredited by the LCME. After a site visit in Nov 2016, the LCME found substantial issues that could impact the quality of education the students receive, placed CNU on written warning and withheld approval for moving CNU to the next step of the accreditation process. This is an unprecedented action on the part of LCME.
This stall in the accrediting process is entirely separate from the fact of CNU administration refuses to apply for the federal student loan program. This means that CNU student are not eligible for federal student loans or for various state & federal scholarship programs such as HPSP and NHSC.
@WayOutWestMom
The bad sentiment against CNU is all over SDN and CC for a long time, as the first for profit MD school in the US mainland, I can see why the medical community cannot accept such an insertion.
It should be warned to any prospective candidate of CNU to reconsider the admission offer, especially to their BS/MD program, as the BS portion of the education probably won’t worth too much if you are dropped out before the MD portion completes.
But, I still want to give CNU a chance to perform and to establish its place in the med school community, the results won’t be coming until many years later. The LCME preliminary accreditation was withhold for future study, I hope they can improve their shortcomings to pass the first three years of preliminary approval, along with 4 other schools. I think it is no more worse than St. Louis University, because it was put on by LCME as probation.
St. Louis University medical school has been around since 1836. The issues that led to provisional accreditation now can be fixed. They have a long track record. To compare SLU to CNU shows a bias at worst or a misunderstanding at best.
The fact they are admitting students to the BS/MD program who have not even applied is not a good sign that CNU will survive.
SLU’s issues primarily were with SLU’s failure to recruit and retain URM and first gen college students. It had very little do with the quality of the education SLU provided. CNU, otoh, was cited for hiring faculty and administrators without the appropriate training and education for the positions they held, for a lack of administrative responsiveness to student complaints (as determined by student satisfaction surveys), for a lack of dedicated workspace for critical laboratory coursework or for the storage of bio-hazardous materials, plus other issues.
RVU and BCOM–both of which are accredited by COCA, not the LCME–have not faced the same complaints because they have not tried to “cheap” their way through setting up their respective schools.
P.S. CNU is not the first for-profit US MD school. San Juan Bautista SOM in Puerto Rico was accredited in 2007. SJB is a for-profit school.
Here is a list of problems at SLU that put it in probation:
The main things are:
Multiple gaps in curriculum and inadequate policies have placed St. Louis University’s School of Medicine on probation by an accrediting agency.
It is not all because of recruiting problems. Gtown and Baylor had been on probation in the past, and they all have been remediated.
Here’s the LCME letter to SLU SOM’s president:
I am not sure why anyone would hope that a for-profit medical school succeeds. It is bad enough that uninformed students are wasting their money at for-profit schools that will never rise from the ashes, or who give diplomas as fake as the ‘fine Corinthian leather’ in a 1975 Chrysler Cordoba. But do I want to walk into a doctor’s office and see CNU gilt-framed diploma on the wall?